TNAG-0028-FCO40-64-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 165

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IMMEDIATE HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

Telno 92 19 January 1968

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22 JAN 1968

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Addressed to Commonwealth Office telegram No. 92 of 19 January Repeated for information to Peking

24 My telegram 50: Communist Prisoners.

Present position is:-

(a) 596 prisoners (including most of those convicted on relatively minor charges early on) have been released:

(b) 82% of the 755 prisoners due for release after 1st April are serving sentences for violent crimes:

(c) 80% of juvenile males under 21 and 28% of 79 females are similarly serving sentences for violent crimes:

(a) Most of the remainder have been convicted for offences relating to inflammatory posters or speech, which are not matters we can at present afford lightly to condone:

(e) It follows from the above that the numbers who might be considered for an amnesty are not large, and there is not a great deal of room for manoeuvre.

2

As Peking telegram 41 to Foreign Office suggests, the Communists clearly attach great importance to getting as many of their supporters released as possible: no doubt both to avoid the stigma of letting them down and in order to get them active again. The probability is therefore that they will exploit their present ability to put pressure on the Mission in Peking and on other British subjects in China to the utmost. This assessment appears to be supported by experience with the exchanges over Grey (see Peking telegram 17). I see every reason to believe that if we took a decision to make releases in Hong Kong the C.P.G. would merely pocket the concession and ask for more; and would continue to do so at least until a point had been reached at which Hong Kong's interests had been gravely damaged.

3. There are further arguments from Hong Kong's point of view against a substantial gesture of this kind. I am certain that public opinion would not as yet tolerate it. It is barely a month since the end of the bomb campaign; and the Communist Press continues to make bitter and subversive attacks on Government. For us to agree to concessions now would be widely interpreted as a sign of weakness. It would no doubt be exploited as such by the local Communist leaders, who are increasingly putting it about (see my Top Secret telegram 14 to Peking) that the reason for their change of tactics is that they have forced us to negotiate. A wholesale release of prisoners here would at least give colour to the belief that we had succumbed to this pressure. Furthermore, in the light of our information that the C.P.G. are now conducting a major review of policy towards Hong Kong it is risky as yet to assume that the retreat from violence is permanent.

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